Archive | July 28th, 2018

Some 4,648 older person-beneficiaries of the Social Pension Program from Agusan del Sur and Davao City recently received their Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) grants amounting to P2,400 each from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

The UCT is the tax subsidy program under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law which seeks to provide cash subsidies to 10 million indigent Filipino families/individuals to cushion the effect of the adjustments in the excise tax of petroleum products and sweetened beverages.

DSWD Secretary Virginia Orogo emphasized that the UCT grant is just an added assistance to help the poor cope with the increase in prices of basic commodities and not meant to address all their needs.

Studies have also shown that the impact of the excise tax adjustment is very minimal compared to the impact of the price increases of crude oil in the global market.

The 10 million beneficiaries include 4.6 million Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program recipients, 3 million social pensioners, and 2.4 million households listed under the Listahanan.

The UCT cash grant distribution in Davao and Agusan is part of the Department’s goal to finish providing the grants to the 3 million indigent older persons the soonest time possible.

Sec. Orogo said, “the Department is currently holding continuous pay-out activities nationwide so that our indigent senior citizens can get their UCT cash grant. We know how important the grant is to them, especially for their medicine and food needs.”

In Davao City, the 1,331 social pensioners were from barangays Centro, Gov. Vicente Duterte, Lapu-Lapu, San Antonio, and Ubaldo of Agdao District.

According to DSWD Davao Region, succeeding pay-outs will be undertaken for the other beneficiaries in partnership with the respective local government units as there are a total of 250,200 social pensioners in the region.

Meanwhile, the 3,317 indigent older persons from Agusan del Sur came from the municipality of San Francisco.

“While DSWD is fast-tracking the pay-outs for the social pensioners, the Department is simultaneously working on validating the remaining 2.4 million UCT cash grant beneficiaries identified through our Listahan poverty database. Rest assured that we are doing our best to expedite the provision of the UCT cash grant, without prejudice to the quality of our service,” Sec. Orogo said. (DSWD/sms) ###

“We would like to warn the public on the proliferation of fake Facebook accounts bearing the name of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The circulation of these accounts is alarming since they can be used to deceive the public to support or donate money for fake initiatives of the government that will allegedly help poor Filipinos.”

This was the warning of DSWD Secretary Virginia “Gee” N. Orogo after finding out about fake Facebook accounts and pages that are using the name of the DSWD to mislead the public.

One of the said fake accounts was discovered under the profile name, “DSWD PH” which uses the official social media logo of the DSWD Field Office (FO) in Central Luzon.

At present, the Department only maintains one official Facebook account under the link, https://www.facebook.com/dswdserves/ and one Twitter page under the account name, @dswdserves.

Moreover, the official pages of affiliated DSWD Field Offices and attached agencies of the Department can be located in the “Pages liked by this page” corner.

“As responsible social media users, we need to learn to discern the truth from bogus information and to be cautious in providing private information in social media and messaging applications. Dubious accounts should also be reported to proper authorities,” Sec. Orogo warned.

Last June, the Department also issued a public warning against fake social media accounts and pages that promote illegal adoption of children. (DSWD/sms) ###